alt Hacker NewsI think the free market response is that another vet with fair prices will show up, but A) that's a waste of everyones time and very inefficient and B) a real grass roots business takes time and passion, somebody to start it, buy in from the community etc.
That work had already been done. To throw it all away for VC or PE to squeeze the life out of it and by extension the community, that's just sad, and a net negative for society. I don't really care about who to blame, the PE or the business owner who sold, the process is destructive.
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There's only one way to combat this, which is to make it unprofitable.
Waste and inefficiency is real. As unpalatable as it is, cleaning up the mess of decay often requires brutal methods. That begs the question, is waste and inefficiency socially undesirable? Maybe not. Maybe not on certain scales or in isolation. But waste compounds.
The business owner is in a job that takes a huge amount of their life, with a suicide rate four times higher than average.
People accuse veterinarians of being in it for the money, the same day another owner decides to euthanize their dog because they don't want it anymore. While an angry owner on social media is rallying pitchforks over something that the vet can't even respond to due to privacy standards.
I have no sympathy for PE that's wandering around our lives, destroying the actual purpose of businesses to extract profit from everyone they can.